Y!M 9.0 Without Ads

One way to disable the ads from the main window of Yahoo Messenger 9.0 is to cut access to one specific file. With this version it doesn't work any more the trick of clearing the file and making it read only.

If you have installed Y!M on a NTFS file system you are lucky, you can remove the Read security attribute and the ads are gone (at least until they fix this too).

Here is the code to remove the access to the file from the command line, or batch file:

cacls "%PROGRAMFILES%\Yahoo!\Messenger\Cache\urls.xml"  /E /P %USERNAME%:N

If you want to bring the ads back because they were adding color to your contact list here is the command line to do just that:

cacls "%PROGRAMFILES%\Yahoo!\Messenger\Cache\urls.xml"  /E /P %USERNAME%:F

I hope they won't read this blog and fix the hole until the final version 9.0 gets out next year ;-)

Edit: by upgrading to version 9.0.0.907 I found out that removing reading rights from the file was not enough, you need to fiddle with the Windows Registry e bit. Here is a batch file that does it for you:


@ECHO OFF
TITLE Remove ads from Yahoo Messenger 9

> %TEMP%.\noYMads.reg ECHO REGEDIT4
>>%TEMP%.\noYMads.reg ECHO.
>>%TEMP%.\noYMads.reg ECHO [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Yahoo\Pager\YUrl]
>>%TEMP%.\noYMads.reg ECHO "First Login Beacon"="noads.html"
>>%TEMP%.\noYMads.reg ECHO "Change Room Banner"="noads.html"
>>%TEMP%.\noYMads.reg ECHO "Finance Disclaimer"="noads.html"
>>%TEMP%.\noYMads.reg ECHO "Messenger Ad"="noads.html"
>>%TEMP%.\noYMads.reg ECHO "Chat Adurl"="noads.html"
>>%TEMP%.\noYMads.reg ECHO "Calendar Alert Ad URL"="noads.html"
>>%TEMP%.\noYMads.reg ECHO "Conf Adurl"="noads.html"
>>%TEMP%.\noYMads.reg ECHO "Mail Alert Ad URL"="noads.html"
>>%TEMP%.\noYMads.reg ECHO "News Alert Ad URL"="noads.html"
>>%TEMP%.\noYMads.reg ECHO "Personals Alert Ad URL"="noads.html"
>>%TEMP%.\noYMads.reg ECHO "Stock Alert Ad URL"="noads.html"
>>%TEMP%.\noYMads.reg ECHO "Webcam Viewer Ad Medium"="noads.html"
>>%TEMP%.\noYMads.reg ECHO "Webcam Viewer Ad Big"="noads.html"
>>%TEMP%.\noYMads.reg ECHO "Webcam Viewer Ad"="noads.html"
>>%TEMP%.\noYMads.reg ECHO "Webcam Upload Ad"="noads.html"
>>%TEMP%.\noYMads.reg ECHO "Chat Transition Ad"="noads.html"
>>%TEMP%.\noYMads.reg ECHO "N2Phone Adurl"="noads.html"
>>%TEMP%.\noYMads.reg ECHO "Webcam Viewer Ad Bid"="noads.html"
>>%TEMP%.\noYMads.reg ECHO "IMVironment Ad URL"="noads.html"
>>%TEMP%.\noYMads.reg ECHO "Auction Alert Ad URL"="noads.html"
>>%TEMP%.\noYMads.reg ECHO "Login Mobile Ad"="noads.html"
REGEDIT /S %TEMP%.\noYMads.reg
DEL %TEMP%.\noYMads.reg

cacls "%PROGRAMFILES%\Yahoo!\Messenger\Cache\urls.xml" /E /P %USERNAME%:N